quick question about watts and subwoofers

[tooooslow]

this is hard to explain so bear with me please

i want to start a custom subwoofer setup for my home.

i have a plate amp rated at 350 watts rms at 4 ohms. if i hook up 2 subwoofers at 4 ohms do they both get 350 watts or is the power distributed 175 + 175?

The reason that im asking this is i have 2 dvc 4 ohm subwoofers lying around that i might try to use. i could run one parallel and one in series to get 4 ohms. i just dont know how the number of speakers used and watts is related. thanks

[RobWells]

If each driver has 2 x 4 ohms then you can parrallel them to get 2 ohms per driver, and connect both drivers in series to get 4 ohms. The plate amps 350w will be split between them.

You can also connect the voice coils in series and drivers in parrallel to get the same result.

Rob.

[AndrewT]

Hi,
or is it more likely that the drivers have dual 2ohm voice coils making each speaker a 4ohm combination when wired in series?

If both 4 ohm speakers are wired in parallel then you are loading your plate amp with 2ohm and this may be asking too much of it.

I do not recommend you wire the speakers in series to make an 8ohm load because the impedances interact with each other and the damping disappears affecting the Q of the speaker and how it delivers the bass.

If you did decide to experiment with 8ohm series combination then the power output (due to constant voltage) is roughly halved and each speaker will see half of that delivery (about 90W to each).

[infinia]

Hi

For dual voice coil drivers it is more common to wire the coils in series (For home use). This assures that the current is the same through each coil. By a series connection there are the most advatages in the drivers magnetic circuit. Please note the T/S parameters will be different. The best drivers will give the T/S for each connection scheme. There are exceptions such as when implementing EQ schemes for baffle step compensation or car audio. No hard fast rules for connecting the DVC, but given 2 woofers sharing a plate amp choose series for 4+4 = 8 ohms for each DVC driver.
Wire the 2 series connected DVC drivers in parallel for a total impedance of approx 4 ohm sharing the same channel of your amplifier. The woofer drivers will divide the power equally (175W +175W) if the impedance for each driver is equally 8 ohms. (Most SS amplifiers are a constant voltage device).
I hope this helps you.